Tag Archives: coronavirus

My walk this week on my local salt marsh, during the Covid lock down, was different to usual. In relative terms, the footpath felt as busy as the M4 motorway which seems to have returned almost to its normal level of traffic.

If you look carefully at the image above you can see the “crowds” in the distance. Without wanting to be too sarcastic, I should mention that there were various other families, couples and individuals using the riverside footpath. As I am used to meeting no more than one other person at most, it felt crowded to me and I veered away from my intended destination of the “church(yard) on the marshes”.

Sound levels may be returning to pre-Covid-19 levels in this area but that includes the birds as well as everything else. Just as the ambient decibels increase, so does the bird song – and there is still the beautiful sound of the wind blowing through the tall marsh grass.

My walk this week is from this time last year when I was visiting Sunbury Walled Garden and gallery because this year I was due to have an exhibition of my audio interactive tapestry weaving. Hopefully the exhibition will happen next year instead. You can see some of my work towards this here.

The interactive aspect of the work was to have been tactile! While the work will still be textural – both weaving and audio – I am now having to think in a different way about how the interaction may be achieved as multiple people touching the same art works may be a problem. This may not be the result or legacy of the Coronavirus lock down but I have to consider that it may be a likely result of the pandemic and our need to maintain a social distance from each other the the things we interact with.

I may even need to consider the degree of interactivity I can provide through proximity sensors! While this changes some important aspects of my art work, I am gradually beginning to see it as an interesting challenge rather than being frustrated by it. Either way, texture will always be important to me and my work, both visually and aurally, so . . . watch this space (as they say) and in the meantime enjoy Sunbury Walled Garden.

My walk this week takes a wander through our local park – Coedbach Park. Along with other parks in the county of Swansea were closed for a few days once the Covid-19 lockdown started, but eh council were good enough to open them again quite quickly. It would have been a great shame not to see it Spring development.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and I made the time for a stroll through the park – I thought I might see the ducklings my daughter had reported to me. Alas, I was only able to enjoy the spectacular blooming of the trees near the entrance and the woodland wildflowers, garlic, wood anemone and bluebells, the crooked oak trees and the sounds of the birds – poor me 😉Continue reading→

My walk this week is an offer to use my StillWalks® videos as well as these blog posts to keep calm and bring the outside in either for yourself or others who are self isolating as a result of the Corona virus pandemic, the confusion it brings and need to de-stress and cope with the anxiety that inevitably accompanies this unusual situation.

As the isolation strategy is to keep away from other people but not actually to stay indoors if you are living away from an urban environment, the StillWalks® message still applies as it is my hope that the videos and blog posts prompt you to go out if you can, and pay attention to the environment around you.

So this week I am providing a video below and links to one or two others as well as a selection of samples.

Starting at sunrise early on a summer morning in Carmarthenshire, South Wales, you will hear the birds and bees, sheep and a horse as you start out along the lane towards the beautiful woodland of Troserch. Crossing a footbridge, the reflections of light and shade in a river are accompanied by wild flowers and footsteps as you head towards a kissing gate leading out into the open fields.